Principal Review

Stop reviewing features. Start reviewing desired state and invariants. A principal review answers two questions, in order: what must be true in the world when this is done? and what must never be allowed to happen for that to remain true? Everything else — architecture, scope, tickets — falls out of those answers.

When to Apply

Run this loop when:

• Kicking off a new capability, initiative, or refactor
• Reviewing a design doc, RFC, or roadmap for over-scope
• A PR or epic feels bloated and you need a principled way to cut
• The team disagrees on what "done" means
• An invariant has been silently violated in production
• You inherit a system and need to map what it actually guarantees

The Loop